I know the rules state that you should include the treasure cards for the designated boss in your game (and, on occasion, heroes and mini bosses) but is this meant to read ONLY the designated boss etc?

Basically, would you be allowed to include all the special treasure cards in your deck regardless of the boss (etc) that you're using? I always thought finding stuff like a random possessed cloak (von drakk unique) or petrified Dragon heart (starfire unique) when fighting roxxor would be cool

I would say that you should play the game however you want, regardless of what the rules say. Shuffling in all the relics sounds like it could be a lot of fun, and the Backer's Rulebook for the 2.0 ruleset even suggests doing this as one way to vary and spice up the game.

@GK The current approach is indeed rather meh. The 1st ed. core relic deck consists of something like 18 cards, so the added cards from bosses &c. only make up about a quarter of the deck. That's just not enough of a contribution to make the deck feel different depending on the boss.

My suspicion is that the same problem will manifest itself in the 2nd ed. regarding Explore cards - last I heard the core Explore deck is going to be 24 cards, and each boss is going to have an extra twelve cards to add to that. Now a third is more than a quarter, but I still have my doubts that it'll be enough to make a dungeon feel like it's the dungeon of a particular boss (rather than just a generic place that boss happens to be housed in).

You are absolutely right. That's another glaring flaw. Many times you don't even draw a single boss card, making the whole menagerie even more redundant.And it's too bad really, because the idea of boss specific loot is solid enough.

It would be cool if instead of just 4-6 cards we get now, there were enough to make a small independent deck.You only draw a maximum of 10 cards in a 5-hero game with max luck exploitation.

For the explore cards I don't see a problem JUST using the boss specifics. You only draw 3-5 right?

1 Explore card per tile, yep (plus at most a few more if the party has Neverlost Cola or some other deal that lets them redraw some cards). So the twelve cards you get from the bosses should be more than enough to stock the Arcade deck. For the Heroes though you can draw up to 2 treasure cards from each chest (in the new rules) plus one from each mini boss, so the minimum number of relics/wonders you'd need for that deck would be 3n-1 (where n is the game size), plus more to support Experimental Alchemy, Captain R and other relic-based effects. I don't know if SPM could come up with enough balanced, thematic and fully illustrated cards for each boss to support a boss-only treasure deck of that size. Also even though one could do that for the Explore deck, there are enough core set Explore cards that I really like (e.g. Creep Factory, Locked Door, the one that gives +1 Princess Coin &c.) and probably more great ones that we haven't seen yet that I would not want to sideline those cards completely in favour of the uniques.

It would all depend on how the game balances of course, but one thing I'm going to experiment with in Classic is letting the different sides customise the decks before the game begins. My current idea is to let the Consul pick the Explore cards using whatever mix of core set & boss-specific cards they wish; and let the Heroes do the same with the Treasure deck; then the Heroes can swap out one of the cards the Consul has chosen for one of their choice and the Consul gets to slip a Boo Booty of their choice into the treasure. This would add another layer of strategy to the game and ensure that every part of the boss package will play a significant role in how the game plays out. Only time and testing will tell though if this would be a mod too far.

It would also be a possibility to spread out the core set and mix them into the boss sets to create several decks.Like... mix 3-4 core set cards into each boss deck.

But of course this becomes problematic if they keep releasing new bosses...How many do we have right now?

StarfireVon DrakkRoxorForgotten KingGoro

But it's not really an elegant solution anyways...

You forgot King Starfire, although I don't know to what extent that one will exist in the new rules, given that the model has been discontinued until further notice. I guess on the Explore front though we'll just have to see how the new cards break down before we can suss out the best way to divvy them up.

In the current rules King Starfire has a boss card, an adventure effect card and one special relic card that comes into play via his adventure effects. He does not however have a set of relics to shuffle into the treasure deck.

I see this as a meta rule. It is there solely to keep up the balance. Roxxor, for example, brings some really, so to speak, broken treasures to the table in 1.0 just to be able to take him down while Starfire has, overall there is an exception, pretty horrible loot as it is a weaker boss.

It is merely meta rules there to keep up balance. While I and my playgroup sees these rules as a holy diagram as we are VERY concerned about meta balance and such so are they by no means fundamental to play the game. No rule is fundamental to play the game in your group, as long as everyone in the group are in on and agrees with the change of rules so should any change of rules be fine. You could literally turn the game into a game where if a model is fell by the die when throwing them that model is removed from the game without it being an issue as long as everyone agrees on it.

Rules exists to have a fair game, not to dictate the game. Unless in some circles like mine, but there is no need for any other gaming circle to confirm to our ways and no need for us to confirm to yours. Every circle has their own meta games and home rules to adapt to that meta gaming and what they find fun.

So go ahead! If it is what makes you happy it is the right thing to do.

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